


These Little Wonders

by orphan_account



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen, yuma is unstoppable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 23:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13962285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: One by one, everyone meets the brightest little ray of sunshine they’ve ever seen, with the exception of maybe the kid’s future self.Or: A too-young Yuma inadvertently gives people cavities and heart attacks, often in the same minute.





	These Little Wonders

The first thing Yuma does when he wakes up is scream.

 

Which, okay, understandable. Not everyone wakes up to a glowing translucent pale-blue face two inches away from their own every day, after all, even if Yuma is the one person who does.

 

Astral blinks at the boy and patiently waits for the scream to die down. Then, he prompts, “Yuma?”

 

The too-tiny figure squeaks in surprise. “How do you know my name?” he shrieks, and Astral quickly leans back to avoid being smacked by a frantically  waved hand. “Who’re you? Why’re you all glowy and bluey?” 

 

Astral frowns, and something like apprehension twitches in his chest. “Do you not remember anything?” he asks worriedly. “Yuma, what is the last thing you recall?”

 

Giving Astral an odd look, Yuma answers easily, “I went to bed after dinner.”

 

Unfortunately, such a reply offers precisely no further information whatsoever, since eating dinner and going to bed tends to happen on most days. Astral refrains from sighing.

 

Yuma looks around in the meantime, seemingly puzzled. “Where am I? This isn’t my room.”

 

“We are on the airship.” Noting Yuma’s confusion, Astral elaborates, “The one from within the Emperor’s Key.”

 

Immediately, Yuma grabs the Key hanging around his neck. “There’s an airship in the Key?”

 

Before Astral can begin trying to explain (and likely struggle in doing so), the door opens, and both of them look up. 

 

“Is he awake yet?” Kotori asks, walking in.  And then she sees the boy who’s clearly up and looking at her, and freezes.

 

Astral inclines his head. “He woke just a minute ago.” As she can see.

 

“I didn’t know Kotori had a sister!” Yuma bursts out, staring at Kotori as if she’d suddenly turned Barian.

 

Kotori pauses. “… I don’t?” 

 

“Eh?” Yuma pouts, furrowing his brows. “Then who’re you, neesan?”

 

“I _am_ Kotori…” Her eyes widen as realization sets in, and she exchanges a look with Astral. “Uh oh. Yuma, how old are you?”

 

“Six!” He holds up the correct number of fingers up to her, as if to prove his point. “But you can’t be Kotori, she’s six too! And you’re…” Yuma gestures vaguely, clearly struggling to find a suitable estimated age, and eventually just spreads his little arms wide says, “Way older!”

 

“I’m only fourteen,” Kotori protests, but she quickly switches gears, turning her attention to Astral. “Do we have any way of reversing this?” 

 

If only she knew that he’d been asking himself the same question since the moment they’d retreated back to the ship. “Such a thing has never happened before,” Astral says. “I do not know of an immediate solution, but I will look into it. How are the others?” 

 

“They’re unhurt,” Kotori reassures. “I had to talk them down from all barging in here at once, though, since they’re so worried about Yuma.” 

 

The said child blinks up at her, clearly recognizing his name. “Who’s ‘they’?” 

 

“Your friends,” Astral says promptly.

 

“Kotori’s my friend, but why’s she fourteen years old when she was six years old yesterday?”

 

“Should I just… tell him?” Kotori asks Astral, who tilts his head slightly.

 

“I do not see a reason to avoid doing so.”

 

“Okay.” Kotori turns back to Yuma, biting her lip. “So… Yuma, you’re actually fourteen too.” 

 

The little boy looks up at her in childish exasperation. “Like I told you, I’m six.”

 

“Well, you’re six now, but you were fourteen a couple hours ago. Something — Chaos, we think — made you shrink.” Kotori shifts, biting her lip for a moment. “We were hoping… but it looks like you don’t remember anything past your age.”

 

Astral glances at Yuma’s blank stare and wonders if he’d understood such an explanation. It must seem unbelievable, to have been older but then de-aged to how he is now.

 

———

 

“Shaaku-niisan!” Yuma lifts his arms, eyes bright and expectant. “Up!”

 

The purple-haired teen turns a flat, disbelieving gaze to him. “What?”

 

“Up!” Yuma wiggles his fingers a little, unfazed by the older boy’s stare.

 

Clearly stifling a snort, Kaito raises a brow at the scowling Ryouga. “You heard him,” he says, sounding all too smug about being spared the pain of having his image ruined by a terrifyingly adorable kid.

 

Ryouga narrows his eyes at Kaito, mouth opening to refute the very idea of acquiescing to the little boy’s demand, but then Yuma edges closer and tugs at Ryouga's shirt and Ryouga makes the mistake of looking down and making eye contact with the little menace, and—

 

He hasn’t seen pleading puppy-dog eyes that powerful since Rio discovered she could just glare him into submission with less effort and more dignity.

 

Gods, he’s going to kill whoever taught Yuma that look. That’s far too much power for one tiny six-year-old to have.

 

He tries to resist it. He really does.

 

“… Just this once,” Ryouga grumbles, and attempts to ignore the warm-melty feeling he gets from Yuma’s brilliant smile and excited cheer. Judging from Kaito’s knowing smirk, though, he’s not too successful at it.

 

As Yuma giggles happily, Ryouga carefully picks him up — flipping Kaito off behind the kid’s back in the meantime, because honestly, fuck him for being unhelpful — and immediately runs into the issue of not knowing what to do next. Does he put Yuma on his shoulders? Or just hold him like a baby? What the hell?

 

Thankfully, Yuma solves his problem by chirping, “Higher!” and making a show of reaching for the top of Ryouga’s head. Ryouga obligingly settles the boy on his shoulders, taking care not to let him fall.

 

Kaito looks far too amused by this development for Ryouga’s liking. He resolves to punch the expression off the other’s face later. Or maybe he'll just duel him into submission, that'd work too.

 

“Better?” Ryouga asks Yuma, somewhat sarcastically, but Yuma beams at him anyway.

 

“Yeah! Thank you, Shaaku-niisan!”

 

———

 

When Ponta runs in screaming, all the ex-Barian Emperors present (meaning all but Rio) immediately stand with their decks at the ready, braced for an attack.

 

They’re definitely not prepared for the sight of a little boy running in after the racoon-dog, laughing and trying to grab the poor thing. Ponta keeps screaming, running circles around the table that the Emperors are gathered at, while everyone watches in stunned silence.

 

Ryouga makes some half-stifled, long-suffering groan in the back of his throat, leans out of his chair, and plucks the boy off the ground as he passes by.

 

“Shaaku-niisan!” The kid beams at him, undeterred by his captor’s dark expression. He points vigorously at Ponta, who’s taken to crawling onto Gilag and hiding. “Look, look!” 

 

“I told you to stay with Rio, Yuma,” Ryouga scolds.

 

“Did you just say 'Yuma’?” Durbe stares at the boy, who admittedly does have quite a resemblance to the duelist they all know.

 

At this moment, Rio pokes her head into the room, looking around with visible unease. “Ryouga, I think — oh.” She relaxes upon sight of the little boy in her brother’s grasp, but quickly begins chiding, “Yuma! What do you think you’re doing? I told you to wait so I could get you your duel disk!”

 

Yuma wriggles around in Ryouga’s hold until he faces Rio. “But Rio-neesan, I saw a cute animal! I wanted to show you!” 

 

Durbe coughs into his fist. “Nasch, Merag? What’s going on?” He raises a brow at his friend, who sighs in annoyance.

 

“Yeah, is that actually Yuma?” Vector leans in, eyes glimmering with interest. “He looks like he’s five!” 

 

“I’m six!” Yuma retorts, flailing to the best of his ability but still unable to free himself from Ryouga’s grip.

 

The leader of the group sighs. “I was going to tell you all at this meeting, but _someone_ jumped the gun.” Ryouga sits Yuma on his lap, wrapping his arms around the kid to preempt any escape attempts. “Yes, this is Yuma. He's six, for some reason. We're working on it.” 

 

“Hi!” Yuma chirps happily to everyone, and then points at Gilag. “Hey, oniisan, you have a cute animal on your head!” 

 

Ponta squeaks and ducks down to hide behind Gilag, while Gilag himself just opens and closes his mouth wordlessly, apparently not knowing how to reply.

 

“Sorry, Ryouga,” Rio says. “We were going to duel to pass the time, but he ran the instant I turned around.” 

 

“It’s fine,” her brother reassures. He'd frankly expected nothing less from the kid.

 

———

 

A scream cuts through the air.

 

Kaito leaps to his feet in alarm, immediately looking towards the source of the sound. “Haruto! Yuma!”

 

“Niisan!” his brother cries, scrambling over to Kaito with the still-screaming Yuma in tow.

 

Lunging towards the kids, Kaito’s eyes widen as he spots the seesaw they’d been playing on — or what remains of it, that is. The metal has been warped and crumpled like paper between flashes of red energy, and the flickering power stretches spindly fingers towards Yuma and Haruto hungrily.

 

It’s Chaos. It has to be. Looks like whoever’s manipulating it hadn’t given up on trying to get rid of Yuma after all.

 

By some miracle, Kaito reaches the children first. He clutches both of them close, his clothes flashing white as he hunches over them protectively, just before the Chaos comes within reach.

 

The power crackles with terrible ferocity against Kaito’s Photon mode, and he grimaces as he realizes that it wouldn’t fully shield him from it for long.

 

A beam of green light suddenly slams down from the sky, however — Kaito looks up just in time to see the countless gears of Astral’s airship — and everything dissolves into light.

 

When Kaito’s vision resolves again, it’s to the sight of Astral worriedly fretting over Yuma (and it  _is_ fretting, no matter how composed the alien pretends to be), with Haruto still clinging to Kaito’s arm.

 

Any remaining Chaos that had been beamed up with them dissipates within moments as the airship shudders, likely crossing dimensions.

 

Well, first things first. “Are you alright?” Kaito asks his brother, who hesitantly nods.

 

“It was just surprising,” Haruto says. “I wasn’t acually on the seesaw, but Yuma… Yuma was on it. He got thrown off when the Chaos attacked.” 

 

Which explains why Astral doesn’t look keen on stepping away from him anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this forever ago, finally decided to toss it here because reasons.
> 
> title inspired by the song "little wonders".


End file.
